After three hours of deliberations, the jury has made its decision. Convicted pirate Joel Tenenbaum, was ruled to have willfully infringed copyrights and was made to pay a sizeable amount.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), an organization that represents the major record labels’ intellectual property rights, and the media companies were awarded $675,000 USD. That’s $22,500 for each of the 30 songs he admitted to sharing.
Tenenbaum plead guilty to illegally sharing 30 tracks through Limewire and other P2P clients on July 30 and was given a ruling by Judge Nancy Gertner that he is liable for copyright infringement a day after.
“I’m disappointed, but not surprised, but I’m thankful that it wasn’t much bigger, that it wasn’t millions,” Tenenbaum said, via Arstechnica.
Yep, I guess he should be grateful that his ruling isn’t like that of Jammie Thomas-Rasset where the jury has awarded the RIAA $80,000 for each of the 24 unauthorized tracks shared via P2P.
RIAA also gave a statement regarding the ruling.
“We are grateful for the jury’s service and their recognition of the impact of illegal downloading on the music community. We appreciate that Mr. Tenenbaum finally acknowledged that artists and music companies deserve to be paid for their work. From the beginning that’s what this case has been about. We only wish he had done so sooner rather than lie about his illegal behavior.”
So you guys, if you don’t have at least $22,500 stashed somewhere, better think twice on sharing those tracks… or those unauthorized ones anyway. 😉
